The $120,000 Art Basel Banana, Explained

You may have seen it on Twitter. On Instagram. Hell, on the cover of the New York Post: a ripe banana duct-taped to the wall, all in the name of art. (Or maybe you just heard a coworker talking about it, and now you’re frantically googling “duct tape banana.”) And now you want to learn more about it or at least understand the frenzy it’s caused over the last few days.

Well, you’ve come to the right place! Because since gazing upon the famed fruit at Galerie Perrotin’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach, I too became utterly fascinated by the banana. (When anyone texts me how the fair was, I don’t reply with words—just seven straight banana emojis.) So while art critics and scholars debate the banana’s status in the cultural canon, I took it upon myself to do a full-on banana breakdown, from the artwork’s background to its six-figure sale price and the art-on-art drama it caused on Saturday. Buckle up, folks.

So, uh, whose banana is it?

Art Basel Banana is catchy, but it’s not actually the work’s name. Titled Comedian, it’s by Maurizio Cattelan. Cattelan is an Italian artist and an absurdist—in 2016 he replaced a toilet at the Guggenheim with a fully functioning gold one. He called the artwork America.

My seven-year-old could have made this.

Yes, anyone with basic motor skills can tape a banana to the wall. But this is conceptual art. So let’s consider the concept. “Back then, Cattelan was thinking of a sculpture that was shaped like a banana,” a statement from the gallery read, via CNN. “Every time he traveled, he brought a banana with him and hung it in his hotel room to find inspiration. He made several models: first in resin, then in bronze, and in painted bronze (before) finally coming back to the initial idea of a real banana.”

Duchampian in nature, the ridiculousness of the whole thing is perhaps what it’s all about. There’s a reason it’s called Comedian, after all, a vaudeville reference to slipping on a peel. “The genius of Cattelan’s banana is that it draws out the mainstream media’s suspicion that all contemporary art is a type of emperor’s new clothes foisted on rich people,” Half Gallery owner and art dealer Bill Powers told me when we saw that work together at Basel. “Was it Warhol who said, ‘Art is whatever you can get away with’? Case in point.”

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Whether this qualifies as art, well, that’s up to you! Art is subjective.

Did anyone buy it?

Yes—three buyers, in fact. It’s reported two editions went for $120,000 before the price was raised to $150,000.

How could three people buy the banana?

In this case, you aren’t actually buying the work itself—it’s a banana. It’s going to rot. What are you buying, then? The certificate of art. Essentially you bought the idea rather than the object.

When the banana goes bad, the owner can replace it, according to the artist’s instructions. It will still be considered a Cattelan.

Wait, $120,000?!

Yep. Low whistle. The price tag—paired with the work’s absurdity—got the attention of social media. And also the press: The New York Post put in on the cover with the headline “Bananas! Art world gone mad—this duct-taped fruit sold for $120K.”

That’s a lot of attention.

Yeah. Soon insane crowds formed in front of Comedian. Security got involved, and official queues were set up. People were just going...bananas.

The banana, in all its social media glory. Photo: Getty Images

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That was a terrible pun.

I’m sorry! But I’ve been so good up until now.

Well, go on.

Then things got really crazy! To quote Gwen Stefani, “This shit is—”

Stop.

Let me live!

I just want to learn what happened next.

Ugh, fine. So on Saturday, when the fair was at its most crowded, a man came up and ate the banana. Real casual like. Just went up, grabbed the fruit off the wall, and took a big bite.

It wasn’t some random passerby but performance artist David Datuna. He explained his actions on Instagram: “Art performance by me. I love Maurizio Cattelan artwork and I really love this installation. It’s very delicious.”

Why...did he eat the banana?

I have no idea. So I called him and asked. “It was a big question mark for all of us—can this banana be an artwork?” he told me. “The same thing with Duchamp 100 years ago. With my performance, I put my question mark after his question mark. This is just a game between two artists.”

And yes, he ate the banana. But also: “Conceptually, I ate the concept of the banana.”

The gallery replaced it after that incident. But they took it down for good on Sunday. “The crowds surrounding the installation posed a serious health and safety risk, as well as an access issue, so the work was removed,” Art Basel said in a statement, according to the New York Times.

What a crazy end to this saga.

But the banana lives on! Galerie Perrotin launched a social media account dedicated to Comedian, complete with many memes. There’s even a Baby Yoda banana crossover!

Well, thank you for explaining this to me. I’m going to close out of this window now.